Bag of Cats
by TheBritishMafia
Summary: Alexandria Reyes is an ace behind the lens of a camera. A freelance job at National Geographic and the world is all she's wanted. But when a sudden deportion denies her citizenship and takes her back to Canada, she takes a job at SHIELD to buy more time. But it takes less than four years to receive citizenship, and when she is offered a job in meantime, she decides to accept.


I had chosen to accept this job at the absolute worst of times. The first part was that my best friend, Heather, had just told me she was pregnant. She was twenty-four, married and was perfectly content to write freelance articles from home while her newlywed husband, Mark, designed buildings for a living and kept them afloat in a nice little loft tucked into a corner of the Seattle skyline.

I, in the meantime, had bought a camera, took some pictures with it, rejected every boy who so much as approached me, won a few awards for some pictures that people thought looked pretty and decided to send in an application to National Geographic to be a freelance photographer. Until I got a notice that I was being demoted indefinitely back to Canada(Part two of my 'I accepted this job at the worst of times' dilemma) and scrambled at any opportunity that could buy me more time to apply for citizenship.

The opportunity that I found was SHIELD, a top-secret organization that a friend of Mark's worked for and found me a job as a paid intern that allowed me to do any odd jobs they needed and provided me with a bed to sleep in, a clean bathroom, mediocre food, a room to myself, and a full three months of basic training, which I somehow passed with ease. I guess running from the wildlife you're trying to get snapshots of pays off in the end.

But in the end, a job was a job, and as I fetched coffee, printed papers, acted as a Post-It covered messenger, and practically taped the corners of my mouth up to keep the smile on my face, the numbers in my bank account got bigger, as did my knowledge of the US. Within the year I was an American citizen, but also tied to an internship that chained me to SHIELD for four years minimum. Part three was my brother's high school graduation, which I inevitably missed.

Though he assured me time and time over that he understood perfectly as to why I couldn't make it, I still felt guilty for missing an important part of his life.

And now I face a new opportunity: At a desk, hands folded, back straight, I say yes to the single most insane question ever to tumble out of a forty-something's mouth and into the thought machine of a twenty-four year old me:

"Would you consider helping out with rehabilitating a wanted extraterrestrial?"

About halfway through the immediate "briefing" which involves the guy dropping file after file onto the space of desk in front of me, my thoughts finally catch up to my mouth.

"Hold on a second," I say, holding up my hand. Whatever the contents of the file he's about to give me remains unnamed as he pauses, a little put off by my disruption.

"Yes?"

"Um," I start off, rapidly trying to put together a well-formed sentence. "I went on autopilot for a moment. What exactly is in my job description?"

"Well, I was just getting to that," He smiles helpfully, letting the next file fall with an audible _plop, _indicating a heavy stack of papers inside. "See' you'll just be his…assistant."

"Wanted criminals have assistants?"

"No, assistant isn't really the right word, now, is it?" He mumbles. I can see the machines running in his head, trying to scrounge up a noun that is dignified, but won't make me backpedal and return to my lowly intern routine. "Ah! Attendant," He nods, agreeing with whatever small bit of consciousness put that thought into his brain. "You'll be his attendant."

"He?"

"Yes, he. He's actually a quite recent case. Surely you've seen the news?"

It takes only two seconds for the name to come to mind. "Loki?"

"Uh huh," He smiles as if there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. "Oh! And this," He opens a drawer and pulls out yet another file, waving it in the air a little before extending it toward me."Is his personal file," I stare at it, letting my fate wash over me. "Well go on, take it." I do. I not only take it from him, marvel a little over how light it is compared to the monstrosities that await me tonight, but I also flip it open, looking at the data sheet and the picture paper clipped to the top. I pull the page up expecting at least one more page, but find nothing.

"That's it?" I look up at the guy in front of me, who has a coffee cup at his lips. He nods.

"Like I said, quite a recent case. They're letting us keep him for a year to see what we do, but you get a really good raise and a new dorm."

My eyes rise a little off the page. "Define new," I say.

"You get your own bathroom and no one has slept on the mattress before you."

_Sold. _


End file.
